Looking towards other operating systems

Windows is almost 35 years old and is an operating system has been around since the beginning. At first, it was a simple GUI that came as an extension of MS-DOS, Microsoft’s existing disk operating system at the time, in 1985. It provided a more friendly GUI than the regular MS-DOS. Microsoft developed its windows from their experience working on Apple products. However, compared to its Apple counterparts, the product was not very popular as it leaked some of the features that made Apple great, and many also saw Windows as a copycat of Apple. Since that time, the OS has gone through many versions and interactions, each one of them building upon the last. The major change came with Windows 95 with a completely new facelift and overall improvements. The project was developed under the codename Chicago and the GUI was greatly improved upon and also came with many kernel improvements. Before 95, the windows and DOS were 2 separate entities and Windows could not be run without installing DOS. Windows 95 combined the 2 making it possible to boot directly into the new desktop environment of Windows.

Windows as the Prefered Gaming Platform

Windows 95 brought us the classic desktop environment that Windows users are familiar with this day with a start menu and minimalist desktop. Microsoft has had many headaches with their Windows launches. The follow up to Windows 95 was 98, which was criticized for being slower than its predecessor, Following 98 was Windows XP which received much praise and was the most beloved iteration of Windows. What followed after XP was a total disaster that has greatly affected Microsoft’s reputation, known as Windows Vista.

Linux and Apple are the major competitors to Microsoft when it comes to personal computers. Microsoft adopted a new philosophy with Windows 10. Instead of continuing the usual trend of releasing a new, major version of Windows, they have started to implement smaller but important updates every 6 months to the existing Windows 10. Today, these updates are now synonymous with system issues and instabilities with many people complaining about programs that have stopped working. Despite this, Microsoft has been quick to patch these issues as soon as possible. Many believe that Windows 7 was the best operating system from Microsoft. It was stable and reliable with everything working as they were supposed to. However, the fiasco that came with the release of Windows 8 which was later addressed in Windows 10, many have been interested in an alternative and stable OS to switch to. When it comes to PC games, Windows is the major and, sometimes, the only platform that developers choose to make their games. Many choose Microsoft’s Windows because of its collection of DIrectX programming interfaces. These can handle almost any multimedia task, especially video and game programming.


Gaming on Linux Made is Better With Wine

Learning a new operating system from scratch is a daunting experience for many people. Fortunately, there are a few Linux distributions that come with a Windows-like desktop environment such as a form of a star bar at the bottom. However, Windows and Linux operating on vastly different philosophies, to the way that they are organized to the way that the files are handled. Linux employs the traditional monolithic kernel and it provides a hierarchical view of the files. Because it is modular, most of the necessary drivers can be loaded and unloaded dynamically. One of the major appeals of Linux is that it is open-source, compared to Microsoft which is a closed and inaccessible environment. Windows is made for simple and out of the box use and directed toward inexperienced users, a reason why the OS has been adopted by so many people. Linux puts more emphasis on the user, who has the possibility of customizing the desktop environment to suit their needs. Windows also offer a few, but fairly limited customization options.

The main reason why people avoid switching to Linux is their gaming habits. Linux is known for not playing well with most PC games. Most PC games are being developed with Windows as the main platforms with some companies providing Linux support sometime after the original release. Games that do not have a Linux release require third party compatibility applications to run Windows games. The major application that is used to play Windows games on Linux is Wine. The developers of Wine have specified that the software is not an emulator but more of a compatibility layer for Linux to run Windows programs, not just games. In the world of programming, Wine is considered a masterpiece and one of the greatest feats of open source development that allows most Windows binaries to run on Linux without relying on any of Microsoft’s dependencies. Most of the Wine resources are dedicated to running the complicated frameworks of various DirectX components.

The Ever-Growing Accessibility of Games

There are a few popular games that work natively on Linux. A few notable examples are Portal/Portal 2, Counter-Strike GO, Rocket League, Deus Ex Mankind Divided and Life is Strange. The options of games have greatly increased with the help of Steam Proton. A week after it launched it made almost 1000 Windows games perfectly playable on Linux and after 3 months the number of games skyrocketed to 3000. While WINE and other compatibility software are good, it still required a lot of driver guesswork, especially when it comes to graphics drivers. Steam has helped a lot in this case, making the process of playing on Linux more streamlined and this has also incentivized more people to ditch Windows in favor of Linux. The number of Linux users remains small, even to this day, however, the people that look forward to changing their OS to one of the many Linux distributions will be met with a friendly and active community that can answer and help newcomers get used to the platform.

Many people prefer to enjoy online gaming, especially casino games. The beauty of these games is that most are available and can be played directly in the browser. The default browser that Linux uses is Mozilla Firefox, which itself, is a powerful browser. Because online casinos are played directly in the browser, there is almost no difference between playing them on Linux and playing them in Windows. There are also casino games that can be downloaded with most of them being made to run only on Windows due to a large number of people using the OS. As mentioned before, to run most Windows software, players have the option to use WINE. However, since because playing the casinos using the browser, most people are better off sticking with that version. Many games from online roulette to poker, and other table games are available online. Almost all online casinos found online have the option to play instantly with no download required, which is why any OS that can run a browser is perfectly capable to run casino games. Linux has been around for a long time, but it was only in the last 10 years that people have started noticing the operating system becoming more friendlier and easy to learn. Besides the many desktop environments, customizability, community and growing compatibility of games, as well as more security, many have started the transition from Windows to Linux.